This memorial proposal is not dedicated to a specific person, but all mankind in general. Nor it is dedicated to a loss in the past, but the inevitable loss in the future. *in collaboration with Senbo Yang and Melissa Dembski-Sullivan*

A MEMORIAL PROPOSAL FOR BRIEF HUMAN LIFESPAN:

We invite people from all over the world to record videos memorizing a certain day as a message to the future, dedicated to either an individual or the public. The video will be sent to seven designated planets simultaneously. After reaches each planet, the video will be reflected back to the Earth to finish it’s journey. Since the distance between the Earth and the planets are different, it takes various amount of time for the video to travel back. Each participant will receive a receipt indicating all the dates that the video comes back, like time slots of a movie to be on screen. Once the video is transferred back, it will be displayed on a giant screen that we build in the Central Park of New York City.

This project will take place in the year of 2046.

installation view, 2016

For the first eight years, the screen will be blank, standing still in the central park as a quiet statue.

In the year of 2055, first returning video will arrive at estimated time, and more yet to come, filling up the screen whenever they arrive. Following the anticipated time slots we given, the participant can wait and watch the screening either on location or through live stream on their own screens at home.

For another 20 years, we will be only receiving videos from the first planet, until year 2079, videos from the second planet will appear as well. Start from then, we will have videos from two different periods of time, two layers of time slices, overlapping with each other.

100 years later, the year of 2146, we can see videos from as close as eight years ago along with videos from as far as 98 years ago.

The video we send out traveling in the universe is in place of every individual. It is a continuation of our life as well as an independent existence. To say we are using time to measure the space of the universe, I’d rather say we are using individual human being’s life to do the measurement, to reach out to the outer space. Each video will appear on the screen for a total of seven times, the seven specific screening dates people are notified can be seen as time markers as well as milestones of the journey. The repetition is therefore important here echoing scales on a ruler.